Frequent readers of Mack's Mets know I am a big fan of John Sickels and the work he does over at minorleagueball.com. In particular, his prospect lists seem to be particularly accurate and have a better correlation to major league success than any other lists, historically. Naturally, I carefully read them when he releases them.
In the mid-season "Top 75", a list that excludes current major leaguers and recent draftees, four Mets appear:
On the list:
#14- RHP Noah Syndergaard (Previous: 18). Comment: Had some rough spots but holding steady overall.
#46- RHP Rafael Montero (Previous: 46). Comment: Holding steady.
#60- C Kevin Plawecki (Previous: Unranked). Comment: Grade B pre-season and almost made the list then.
#61- OF Brandon Nimmo (Previous: Unranked). Comment: Slow start in Double-A but he maintained command of the strike zone and I think he'll come around.
In consideration:
In addition, Sickels lists another hundred or so players "Considered" for the list which include Mets farmhands Wilmer Flores, Steven Matz, Dilson Herrera, and Dominic Smith.
In the comments:
A question from StevieStyles, titled "Dilson" asking, "I'm curious as to why he isn't ranked higher than the middle of "Others Considered". He is having a tremendous year, has been killing it since being called up to Double A, and is the youngest hitter in the Eastern League".
John Sickels: "Well a lot of the research here was done when the sample size in Double-A was less than 10 games. He's up to 23 now and still hitting. He'd be in the 80s right now, but if he maintains this and if the reports are good (the only report I had dated back to early April) he would be in the top 75 at the end of the year and it is plausible that he would be in the Top 50"
Another question came in about Jacob deGrom, wondering where he would fit on the list had he not graduated. To this, John responded:
"Given how well he has pitched, I'd say 80-100 area".
Opinion:
A strong showing from a continuously improving farm system that also graduated Travis d'Arnaud off this list.
5 comments:
As a side note, John Mora down in the GCL is 5 for 5 today with two triples and a double. Yes, he just turned 21, so he's a bit old for the league, but he's hitting .400 with an OBP up over .500 at this point. He's not big (listed 5'10 and 165) but he's 9 of 11 stealing bases. I have no idea how competent he is in CF. But damn, the kid is tearing it up down there. It'd be nice to see him get a shot a level up before the season ends, no?
I love it when a player kills it statistically but in the low minors, especially for his age, I can't read much into it.
Beccera's recent offensive surge? That I can look more into.
Thanks for the note, though, I'll keep an eye on him.
I love Sickles, but how, given deGrom's numbers in the ML, would he be in the 80-100 range?
That's nuts
Exactly, Lew. deGrom should be top 10-15 at worst...he has already excelled in the big leagues. Sickels is way, way off there.
Also, I remember a month or two ago when I had a similar question about hard-hitting Jairo Perez in St Lucie, about his slight weight, someone posted back that on another site, his weight was 20 or 25 pounds higher. I think the same could be said, actually, about Juan Lagares, who was listed light in the minors, but now he is listed much heavier.
Sometimes they just fail to update those sorts of stats. And that makes it harder to armchair evaluate guys, which is frustrating.
Prospect guys are slow to warm up to players who weren't supposed to be good. It was just three months ago when everyone, myself included, saw deGrom as a reliever.
While his peripherals are good, it's tough to buy into a guy with 100 innings under his belt, especially when he's 26 already and was never a top prospect. You won't find many (if any) prospects 25 years or older on my top 100 list either.
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